Friday Night With Friends Results

Friday evening I had planned on taking part in the Friday Night With Friends blog party over at Gone Stitchin.  This is what I have been working on catching up with for the last couple of weeks.  The Moogly CAL blocks.  I only have one more to finish to be caught up but all the blocks in this picture need the ends woven in and blocked. I planned on working on that last block Friday night but the truth is I did not pick it up until Saturday and only got a couple of rounds done on the center flower of the block.  These are the colors one of my sisters in laws picked out.  It will be a Christmas present.  

Today I chopped up around 6 pounds of Rhubarb, this bunch was the first of three trips out to the garden.  Made Rhubarb sauce for my in-laws and got one batch of Rhubarb Butter canned and more chopped and ready to for another batch to be canned tomorrow. 

I hope everyone has had a great weekend.  Blessings from our home in the woods.

Brenda

The Gardens are In!

Just a quick post to share the vegetable gardens we got planted last week.  When they start getting some growth on them I will share again.  We started out with these flats of tomatoes, peppers and other vegetable plants along with green bean, radish, beets, pumpkin, zucchini seeds and potato sets.

This is what we call our salsa garden we plant all of our tomatoes and hot and bell peppers here.

 This garden has our rhubarb, rows of raspberries and we are trying green beans in the same area this year because we had a very bad year where we had been rotating them last year.

The wood worker after all the salsa garden was planted.

A lot of tomato cages!

 
 This is the gate and garden bench the wood worker built last year for our new raised beds.

 The following is our back garden that has not been doing great the past couple of years.  Even though we have been amending it the sandy soil has been working against us here.  We have put the radishes, beets, potatoes and the vining plants in this area and hope that they take off well.

As you can see all of our gardens are fenced.  We need to do that because of the deer and in the yard area to keep the chickens out.

Also wanted to share this huge morning glory plant that I bought at one of the local farmers markets this year.  It was affordable and I wanted to try to grow it on a trellis the wood worker made a few years ago.  I have tried to grow these from seed but they have not done well.  So we are going to dig a huge hole and put a lot of compost in it and I am hoping they we look wonderful the whole summer in our flower boarder.

Went to see our oldest grandson graduate today from 8th grade.  We are so proud of him.  He is 14 and over 6 feet tall.

That's all for now.  I am hanging out with the Friday Night With Friends group tonight but unsure what I am going to work on yet.  Early day tomorrow so I will be posting later in the day what those results are.

Blessings from our home in the woods!

Brenda

Come Walk With Me

Today was a beautiful day and I decided that I needed to go out for a walk.  I am a fair weather walker, I do not enjoy walking when it is to cold or damp.  I really need to make more of an effort because we have such a pretty property to enjoy while walking.  It is not very green yet and there are not any flowers to share either but here is the path I walk.  This path takes us from our yard out back through the woods.

 
How would you like to listen to one of the songs that I listened to along the way?




As we walk along this path there is a fork and I always stay to the left.

This is what the woods look like right now.  In another month the ground will be covered with fern and wild blueberries.

Continuing along the path.

And here we come to the opening where the back pond is. We have not had much rain yet this spring so it is not quite full.  The board is a foot bridge the woodworker has put there for the grands to walk across and sit to dangle their feet when the water is higher.
 
If you look to the left the back garden has been tilled and is waiting for the weather to warm up for planting.

As we continue around the pond you see this little hunting shack the woodworking built the first year we lived here.  

And now we have came around to the other side of the pond.

Taking the path back toward the house.

After we have walked back to the yard we circle around the house to the front of the property and walk around the big pond up front.

The water lilies have not come up yet but the pond is very pretty right now.

Continuing around the other side of the yard we walk past the hen house and all the feathered ladies come over to have a chat. 

 

 And here is the new raised beds the woodworker built last year all ready to plant.

  And on we go for another go round.  I usually take the same route 3-4 times around.  That gives me about a 2 to 2 1/2 mile walk.

Now this you may not enjoy as much.  Every year these ants build a large ant hill in the same place.  We are going to try and get rid of them this year.  They are always moving across a short path that I take back up the drive to the yard and I have to move fast to make sure I don't get any up my legs. Might give you the shivers.

When everything is green and the flowers are blooming I will invite you along again.  Blessings from our home in the woods!

Brenda

FNWF Result

Just a short post to share my Friday Night with Friends results.  I finished cutting and laying out the blocks for the current Aurifil mini quilt.

I am using fabric from my 30's stash but had to go out and buy a yard of fabric for background and a fat 1/4 for sashing, which I do not have pictured.  Am not sure if I will keep the blocks in the order I have them set up in now, I was somewhat trying to copy the colors in the designers blocks.  I only got 2 blocks sewn and one is off somewhat, not sure if it will correct itself when I put the boarders on or not.   

So I am off to work on this mini some more since I have my Saturday morning paperwork done.  Still have to pay bills even though I would rather sew.  Hope you are all having a great weekend.  Blessings from our home in the woods!

Brenda

Planning and FNWF

Although we have close to two feet of snow still covering our ground I decided I better get serious about getting some garden seed ordered.  Last year our green bean crop was a fail.  We had too much rain and planted three times and never got a bean.  I also did not order our favorite seed on time and just picked up some from one of the local greenhouses so that might have been part of the problem also.

This is our favorite, Crockett Untreated from Harris Seed.  https://www.harrisseeds.com/storefront/p-13907-bean-crockett-untreated.aspx  I must get it on order soon,  They are longer thin beans and the harvest lasts longer, re-blooming and putting out beans longer than any others we have tried.  And they are great canned.

I am also going to be on the lookout for something new for us this year.

This sounds like a great perennial to grow, it is also known as mountain celery.  I read about it in the 2015 February/March MaryJanesFarm magazine.  There is also a Creamy Lovage Soup recipe in the article that I cannot wait to try.  

While I am waiting for spring and the snow to melt I have been keeping busy. I have finished the 3rd and 4th block of the Moogly 2015 CAL.

This one is being blocked.

I also finished the center square for the Aurifil 2014 quilt this past week.

I now need to set all the other blocks and then I can put it together. 

Tonight I am working on the next 2015 Aurifil mini quilt.  I have most of the cutting completed. so I can just sit and sew.  You can read about this QAL here. and see what the finished quilt will look like.

Before I close I want to share a picture of our youngest grandson who turned 1 year old this past week.  This is grandchild number 8.

Did not get a picture that he did not have something in his mouth but I wanted to share this beautiful brown eye boy.

We are dreaming of spring here in Michigan as I know so many of the rest of the country is.  Blessing from our home in the woods.

Brenda

Linking with:   

And Hanging with: 

Friday Night Sew In Results and Some Baking.

My plan for my Friday Night Sew In was to start the next Aurifil Mini Quilt, which this month is designed by Joanna Figueroa of Figtree and Co., but I only spent a little time picking out some fabric from my stash before I realize I needed to shop for some new fabric for this block.  I did finish last months block since the last FNWF, so I can share that although I have not quilted and bound it yet.

Sew instead of working on the Mini I moved upstairs, where it is much warmer, and worked on the center block of last years Aurifil QAL.  Started with this:

Ended with this:

Not a lot accomplished, I got tired of the blanket stitch so I moved on to the center of the block and will go back and finish up the stitching on the applique.

I was not able to work on the block anymore today because it is my week to take cookies to church so my day was filled with baking.  Started out with this:

Gathered up all my supplies to make cookies that I picked out on my Pinterest board that is titled Baking for Church.  I ended up picking recipes that were all from Sally's Baking Addiction.  One of our family's favorite cookies is her Chewy Brown Sugar Cookies. I have made these quite a few times.

Today I tried three more that we are liking a lot also.  First is the Thick Oatmeal Raisinets Cookies.  I could not find the Raisinets at the local grocery so I substituted Brachs chocolate covered raisins.

These last two cookies start with a cake mix.  One is called Cake Mix Cookies, I used Funfetti cake mixes, and you only add some oil and eggs.  The other is Strawberry Chocolate Chip cookies which you start with a Strawberry cake mix as the base.

I have shared the links, just click on the name of the cookie if you want a yummy recipe to make for your family or friends.  I have filled our cookie jar for the grands also which has put some smiles on their faces.  Of coarse the Bug was hanging all afternoon with me in the kitchen hoping that I might drop something for her to clean up.

I hope you are all having a great weekend, don't forget to hop over to Sugarlane Quilts to check out what everyone else has been working on this weekend. Blessings from our home in the woods!  

Brenda